jjakucyk

If you can find an alternative truck route, then I'd like to hear it.

Well as I've said before it's also an important east-west cycling route as well, and no, creating a bike path would not be a suitable replacement for that. Still, as a city, region, or even society, we can't afford to devote all of our riverfronts, hillsides, forests, lakes, etc., to recreational purposes. The central riverfront here in Cincinnati certainly should be a nice "front lawn" of sorts, but at some point there gets to be so much park land it's difficult to figure out what to do with it all. That's a bad thing for parks, because when they're underutilized they can become dangerous. Also, there's nothing contradictory about the statements that the truck traffic is minimal, and that it's always been there. The whole riverfront used to be teeming with people, trucks, carts, railroads, warehouses, and all sorts of activities that weren't parkland. Yes, things have certainly changed, but to try to push away everything that may be deemed even the slightest bit undesirable is to sterilize the area to such an extent that it loses much of its value. In my view, the relocation of the road as it's being done is a good and pragmatic solution, it's simple and straightforward. We don't need some big tunnel or viaduct or other needless infrastructure that will only cost us more to build and to maintain. Even if what little truck traffic there is could be diverted, there's still all the other stuff going on in the area that'd still be there. It's really a moot point as far as I'm concerned.

Also, the notion that this is going to be some sort of "serene and pastoral" park is pretty laughable. Much of Sawyer Point is permeated by highway noise from the Big Mac Bridge, and this park will be characterized by the hum of cars crossing the Roebling Suspension Bridge. There's also noisy barges going down the river, motorboats, and the various sirens and other noises you find in all highly urban areas. That's just the way it is, and these sorts of things add to the interest and vibrancy of the area.

Another important use for the tunnels was the supply of coal to buildings for heating, and even more so for the removal of ash and clinkers. While I don't know for certain, I would imagine the loss of this business as buildings switched to natural gas was a big blow to the company.

No it isn't, Europeans use about half the total amount of energy per capita as we do.

That really illustrates how scale can be so relative. Approaching Cincinnati from I-75 northbound in Kentucky is just as impressive as seeing the Chicago skyline from Lake Michigan or South Lake Shore Drive, even though it's not nearly as large.

A point that a lot of people seem to miss is that with efficient and extensive public transportation, you will still have a roughly similar absolute amount of congestion, but with more population density and fewer roads so the relative amount of congestion is less. Take Chicago for example. The Kennedy Expressway is a 10 lane highway (4 lanes each way plus the 2 reversible express lanes). It is regularly very congested, but if the Blue Line and other L routes, as well as the many Metra commuter rail lines weren't there, it would still be a "regularly very congested" highway, only with 14 or even more lanes running through a much more depopulated neighborhood. People are still stuck in traffic on the Kennedy just as long as if there was no mass transit, but there's fewer total people in that traffic jam on a smaller road than would be necessary otherwise. If the CTA and Metra both went on strike, Chicago would be absolutely crippled by hundreds of thousands more cars trying to get downtown, and even when they did there wouldn't be anywhere to park. Essentially, public transit increases the carrying capacity of a neighborhood beyond what can be accommodated only with roads. In urban areas a certain level of congestion is a good thing, as natininja pointed out. Congested roads are fully utilized, and they encourage people to seek alternative ways of getting around. A number of years ago in school we had a presentation by Copenhagen's traffic engineer, who said that when a road become too congested, they REMOVE a lane. They would make it a dedicated bus-only lane, or expand cycling facilities, to shift the traffic to other modes. That's the real key, to bring other modes of travel that can carry more people more efficiently in that same space. This is why I'm a little dismayed by the tenet around here that streetcars, buses, bike lanes, etc., must not impede automobile traffic. They absolutely should impede auto traffic, so that it favors their own operation and makes them more attractive than driving. Another thing to consider is that even car-centric areas that are well connected with a good street grid (as opposed to the typical suburban collector/distributor/arterial system) and a decent level of density have much lower total amounts of driving. So anyone who lives within the city limits of a relatively light-density city (which much of Cincinnati outside the basin is) tends to drive less than someone in a transit-oriented suburb simply because of the closer proximity to all destinations. The person in Hyde Park or Northside may go on just as many trips as someone in Mason or Anderson Township, but the trips are so much shorter that it makes a huge difference. In a place like OTR, with good walkability and the streetcar, one would likely not have to drive at all to get anywhere within the neighborhood or to downtown or uptown. There would be more traffic than today, both people coming into the neighborhood and going out, but the high density and close proximity to other destinations makes it much less of an impact on overall traffic. The OTR resident could accomplish a week's worth of errands in the same amount of driving that someone who lives in West Chester would do just to get to work one day. And to Eight and State's comment, the streetcar may not reduce congestion when taking the resultant development into consideration, since OTR is so thoroughly underpopulated, but it most certainly will reduce air pollution and dependence on oil (foreign or otherwise) when taking that same development into account. An extra 20,000 or so people in OTR means that many less living in a suburban location that requires more driving and more resources. Shorter trips means less energy used, regardless of the source. Since the streetcar is electrical, even though it's powered from coal, it's still more efficient than internal combustion engines in many different vehicles, and less polluting.

On the east it funnels right into the Reds' stadium parking garage. On the west it does go along the north side of Paul Brown Stadium, but it sort of peters out under the Freedom Center as an entrance to their parking garage.

I've never noticed an inordinate number of trucks on Mehring Way. In fact, on weekday evenings and on weekends it's practically deserted. Also consider the number of trucks that are there just to service the construction of the Banks and the park itself. I just think you're harping on something that's really a non-issue.

Is Cincinnati Metro still using biodiesel for the buses? I know they did for a while, but they pulled off all the "Powered by Biodiesel" bumper stickers a while ago.

Please, there's really not that much traffic there, especially during the times when most people would be using the park. The road is really not going through the park either, it's forming the northern boundary of it. We still need a road through there as an alternative to 2nd/3rd, which is not an acceptable route for cyclists, or for traffic to/from the stadiums, Sawyer Point, Longworth Hall, etc. The park areas north of the road are superfluous in my opinion, and just confuse the organization of everything. Without the road, the north edges of the park just sort of jerk around with no order. I'd rather see a nice wall of buildings define the edge of the park, but the road is the next best thing.

Back in the day, the height above the ground to the trolley wire in Cincinnati was specified as 17' which I believe was a bit higher than usual. Today that is the spec'd clearance to the bottom of traffic signals. That said, on all old photos I've seen of Cincinnati where there were streetcars, the traffic signals were hung on short posts off the side of utility poles, so they weren't under the wires, they were off to the side. This doesn't work today, but it seems the wires could easily weave through and below traffic signals. Also traditionally, there were the typical overhead power lines on wood poles like we still have, while the streetcar power was all supported on the iron poles we still have on many streets. On one side of the street the pole was usually a bit taller with a crossarm to carry other wires for the streetcar power system. This was all lower than the general electric infrastructure on wood utility poles. The problem today is that there's cable TV, fiber optics, traffic signal interconnects and such in that lower zone on the utility poles. None of that existed back in the day, and the telephone lines are pretty much all underground in the city. Still, assume that all new wiring for the streetcar is conveyed underground, and all existing overhead utilities remained. Only the wire directly over the track is energized. The perpendicular span wires are insulated, and the occasional feed wire would also be insulated as well. The supposed safety issue of wires coming into contact is no more a problem than with the existing overhead utilities coming into contact with other wires on the same pole or trees or whatever. Speaking of all this, what's the modern standard power system for streetcars? Back in the day it was 600 volts DC, but there seems to be more and more push to do it all with single-phase AC current, or at least use AC for the distribution even if it's transformed to DC in the cars to run standard traction motors.

The owner happened across my website and after someone else canceled he invited me along to talk about the history of the line that he runs over and that the two other guys own/operate. Here's a few pictures I snapped. Note that they routinely sell out, but I got there early enough that not many people were there so it was easier to walk around. The first dining car is the one that used to be on blocks in BBQ Revue's parking lot a few years ago. Ultimately that remains to be seen, but there's a track connecting it with the NS line, former Big Four, that's on the way to Union Terminal. The kicker is that the connection only ponts south, so they'd need to lay a new track so trains from the north can get in and out without having to back in. Of course there's a building in the way. I doubt any of this has been sorted out yet.

So I got to ride in the private rail car of the Cincinnati Dinner Train with its owner (also majority shareholder in the Lebanon, Mason & Monroe Railroad), the Midwest Regional Vice President of RailAmerica, and General Manager of the Indiana & Ohio Railway. If you haven't tried it, I highly recommend it. The food is excellent, made by the folks at BBQ Revue, and the restored dining cars are fantastic. Piggybacking this sort of thing on 3-C trains would be awesome. Anyway, I was able to get some confirmation from them that the Bond Hill station is in fact (at least at this point) planned to be at Berry Yard. That's right next to the I-75/Norwood Lateral interchange. The trip also illustrated the challenges that would be faced for any Lunken or Boathouse alignment. While the ride wasn't at all bad, as the train was going quite slow, it still revealed that any sort of passenger rail alignment through there would be winding through a pretty difficult route. We went from BBQ Revue north for a short distance to park over I-71 for a few minutes before heading all the way to the Boathouse and back. That was a 3 hour journey. The return trip was a bit faster, and we actually could pick up a fair amount of speed north of Columbia Parkway, but there's a lot of grade crossing, a rough turn near Lunken, and areas where back roads (with houses on them) are almost on top of the tracks. It would be a lot of work to really get it into shape for any serious passenger movements. These three guys agree that Union Terminal is the place for the passenger station, and as they put it, the only problem is having to deal with CSX and NS. Also, the construction that's been going on just east of the Friendship Park is for some new bulk freight transshipping facilities. The existing barge terminal there wants to expand its operations to offload things like pig iron to rail cars, so it would actually benefit I&O and the Oasis line by adding some more freight shipments to the line.

The reason Vine is the best route for the streetcar (direct and the shallowest grade) also makes it the preferred route for cyclists. Clifton might be ok for going downhill, though the sharp bend at Hastings is a little hairy. Auburn isn't an option because it doesn't go down the hill. Sycamore is basically impassible, and Highland/Liberty isn't much better.

Jake, we're just trying to discuss the ways that this project can minimize the potential impact on cyclists, and maybe even help encourage more bike use along the corridor. It looks like you're trying to pick a fight, but nobody's stepped up to the plate yet because there's nothing to fight over.

There's too many other things to hit, like utility poles, parking meters, sign posts, fire hydrants, garbage cans, whatever. You also can't escape that the storm drains are also in that zone as well.

Nooooo, because then you have no escape if a parked car opens a door...you either crash into the car/door or you flip over upon hitting the curb. Whenever you have a bike lane on the curb with street parking, you need an extra buffer between the bike lane and the parked cars, like another 5-6 feet of unusable pavement.

They pretty well removed the locks and whatever structures used to be there. No maps show any sort of raceway or anything left at all after that stretch of the canal was abandoned. It's possible that they did drain it into one of the sewers under Eggleston or Culvert Street. They already had to drain Deer Creek through there (hence Culvert Street), and those are some very large constructions. There's a newer round pipe under Eggleston that's 12' in diameter, but the presumably original one made of stone is 14' high by 12' wide...damn! There's 8' diameter pipes under Broadway Commons and Culvert Street, which could easily suck the canal dry, but I don't know if they ever plugged into those.

See that picture illustrates what I wish we could do with Vine Street in OTR. I think it'd benefit from having 2-way streetcar traffic, then make it a sort of car-unfriendly zone, but still allowing all forms of traffic. The way the sidewalk and bike lanes and roadway all sort of blend together is great for traffic calming, and it would really soften the environment.

Now that would be an interesting idea. As much as I hate to see old fabric disappear, thinning the place out in some way might be what's needed to bring it back to life. Imagine clearing out the whole interior block and making it a sort of park/square/front yard for the whole development. New buildings could be constructed along the north and west edge where they're missing, and also at the southeast side as well, so you have a continuous building envelope. Those new buildings could accommodate some parking for the whole place too.

I doubt it's even possible to widen Vine Street, since so many of the buildings are right up on the sidewalk. The only real possibility I see is to eliminate street parking on one side and use that for bike lanes each way. Eliminating any street parking is a tough sell in this city, and the standard solution of providing some city-owned off street lot nearby is not something we'd want to encourage along this route anyway. As long as the corridor isn't made hostile towards cyclists, then I think it'll ultimately be fine. There has to be some consideration to all users (complete streets and all), but no heroic interventions are probably necessary. At some point you do have to just suck it up and realize that the streetcar is the best thing that can be going on there. It's sort of like the people in Washington DC who are all up in arms about the overhead wires. They need to get over themselves and realize that this is what has to happen to put a multi-modal transit system in place. A few wires or some inconvenience to a certain segment of the cycling population (I'm disappointed in some of the stereotyping going on in the comments above though) is worth the other benefits the transit system will bring.

It's pretty much all Corryville, which is a fairly consistent rectangle bound by Jefferson near UC, Vine north of MLK, Erkenbrecker, Burnet, and McMillan. That's an interesting point about the canal vs. Mill Creek, especially when you consider that in the later years of the canal some and eventually all the water was diverted into the creek up near Spring Grove Cemetery. The added flow of pretty clean water helped immensely to flush out Mill Creek. However, the stretch of the canal along Eggleston Avenue was abandoned sometime in the 1850s or 60s, and as far as I can tell there was no spillway south of Spring Grove. With fewer industrial customers (especially breweries) using the canal in OTR and downtown, I suspect stagnation really was a problem, though they could've just tapped into a sewer line near Sycamore or Cheapside to keep the flow going.

That $.50 per mile is NOT sunk costs. Nowhere in the breakdown of what goes into it was purchase/lease payments. It's about the wearing down and maintenance costs of the vehicle that is incurred by driving it. Not everything is fixed, a car still depreciates if you don't drive it, and you still pay insurance, but those things are exacerbated when you do. The rest of the factors in that $.50 are a direct fraction of routine maintenance and fuel costs. The whole reason mileage reimbursement for business travel is set at that number is because that's really what it really costs to drive. It is completely applicable here.

Cincinnati to Cleveland is about 250 miles to drive, so round trip that's about 500. It costs about $0.50 per mile to drive a car, that's why Federal mileage reimbursement is set around that number (I think it's closer to $0.55 but whatever). That's where the number for driving comes from. It has nothing to do with parking, it's gas, regular maintenance (oil, brake pads, fluids, spark plugs, belts, tires, alignments, suspension, etc.), insurance, depreciation, everything. I won't pretend to have done much checking on air fares, but a round trip fare from Cincinnati to Cleveland, booked two weeks in advance on Delta is $370.